An introduction to ZTE’s energy department and their range of solutions including DC power systems, hybrid and renewable energy and their network energy management system. This interview also highlights ZTE’s appetite to provide project finance, as well as some of their customer deployment success stories and award-winning innovations.
TowerXchange: Please introduce yourself and introduce ZTE’s Energy Solution Planning team and vision.
Weibo Li, Director of Energy Solution Planning, ZTE:
Founded in 1994, ZTE’s energy department has 21 years of experience in the AC/DC power field and 13 years of experience in the green energy field.
Now, the ZTE energy department has become the most successful Chinese enterprise in the global communication energy field. We have more than 1,000 employees, most of whom are senior engineers and subject matter experts. This department aims to be a “Green energy expert, your best partner”, making continuous innovations to meet market and customer requirements, and providing customers with competitive energy products and solutions.
ZTE energy department can supply a wide range of energy solutions and products, including DC power systems, hybrid power systems, solar plants and our network management system.
TowerXchange: Please tell us about some of your energy solution planning success stories from around the world.
Weibo Li, Director of Energy Solution Planning, ZTE:
In the telecom field, ZTE energy solutions have been adopted by operators in over 160 countries, and are used widely by mainstream operators such as Telefónica, Telenor, América Móvil, MTN, Teliasonera and Etisalat.
I will share two success stories with TowerXchange readers.
ZTE enjoys high level cooperation with MTN. Since ZTE cooperated with MTN in 2008, more than 4,500 sets of DC power systems, 6,500 sets of hybrid power solutions and over 20 sets of large capacity UPS have been providing stable power for different branches, especially within MTN’s networks in Nigeria and South Africa. ZTE has become the main supplier of MTN, providing network transformation support, network quality improvement and TCO reduction services which have reduced fuel consumption.
ZTE’s energy department has also become one of the most important partners of Telefónica, offering power supply systems and solutions to 11 branches of the group, especially in Latin America. Over 20,000 sets of our DC power systems are providing service for Telefónica.
Besides the telecom field, ZTE’s energy department have also been providing service in more than 30 countries for government and enterprise communications.
TowerXchange: According to statistics from Detecon quoted in a ZTE white paper, 36% of MNO’s network opex comes from site leases, 30% from O&M and 10% from energy - given that all these services are provided by a towerco when they acquire towers from an MNO, how do the strategies of towercos differ from the strategies of MNOs when it comes to investments in opex efficiency programmes?
Weibo Li, Director of Energy Solution Planning, ZTE:
On one hand, tower companies have an urgent need to reduce O&M and energy costs in order to make more profit from tenants. On the other hand, tower companies do not want to invest too much money into energy solution upgrades because they have already invested huge sums to acquire towers from MNOs. However energy and operating costs must be lower than before while the service to MNOs must improve. So tower companies will be more sensitive to capex and O&M costs compared with MNOs. As a leading energy solution supplier, ZTE focuses on:
1) A smooth energy upgrade path when tower companies are ready to transform their existing network or when they have new tenants come in
2) Intelligent network energy management to help save more O&M cost
For example, ZTE has several projects under way with IHS in Africa and other projects with America Tower in LatAm where we are minimising O&M costs without investing huge capex.
TowerXchange: How should towercos and MNOs balance the need to customise energy solutions to meet the specific needs of a complex and distributed network of cell sites, with the need to standardise to drive volume efficiencies in procurement?
Weibo Li, Director of Energy Solution Planning, ZTE:
This is a complex and important problem faced by towerco and MNO. Through unified multi energy control platforms, modular design, integrated structure, ZTE Power Master solution can satisfy different customised requirements which help solve the challenge.
For the energy generation part, it not only supports renewable energy, solar and wind power, but also supports traditional generator and grid power. For the energy conversion and control part, all components adopt modular design and are integrated into one cabinet, including the rectifier, solar PU, wind controller, inverter, dc/dc convertor, and so on. For the energy storage part, various batteries are provided for different scenarios. There are many highlights of the ZTE Power Master solution, such as unified management, integrated system, comprehensive monitoring, and a smooth upgrade path to integrate different solutions and additional capacity.
All these features can help towercos and MNOs balance the need to customise energy solutions with the need to standardise to drive volume efficiencies in procurement.
TowerXchange: Please introduce us to ZTE’s energy consumption management platform; what role does remote monitoring and management play in visualising and optimising network energy?
Weibo Li, Director of Energy Solution Planning, ZTE:
With rising telecom requirements in this internet era, more and more telecom sites are deployed to satisfy voice/data/video requirements even in some developing countries. As the heart of telecom sites, the telecom energy solution supplies stable power supply to equipment. But, the three biggest challenges faced by operators include:
1) How to monitor and understand energy status of the whole network
2) How to know the bottleneck of network energy and reduce high energy cost
3) How to accomplish site security management, maintenance management and asset management
In order to help overcome these challenges, ZTE developed our iEnergy solution which can accomplish the following functions: whole network monitoring, visible working status, energy efficiency optimisation, network O&M efficiency improvement, site security management, and asset management. The ZTE iEnergy solution can provide customers with a user-friendly internet interface, intelligent, integrated energy management and reduce their TCO to the maximum extent.
TowerXchange: What role can ZTE play in helping to raise project finance for network energy investments?
Weibo Li, Director of Energy Solution Planning, ZTE:
As a global company, ZTE have established co-operative partnerships with international and Chinese banks, such as the IMF, China Development Bank, and The Export-Import Bank of China.
ZTE also have our own finance platform and have 30 years of experience in this field, which can help a lot to raise project finance for network energy investments.
ZTE are increasingly co-operating with towercos to supply the equipment that will unlock energy efficiencies and substantial opex savings. A new means of co-operating is zero capex models in which the towerco pays nothing up front instead paying over the following years.
TowerXchange: I’d like to ask a question about ZTE’s domestic market. Given that the electricity grid is extensive and reliable in China, what has been achieved to further improve energy efficiency at Chinese cell sites, and what opportunities does the creation of China Tower Company offer for the centralisation and standardisation of network energy best practices?
Weibo Li, Director of Energy Solution Planning, ZTE:
As you mentioned, the grid power is very good in china. So a grid + DC power system + battery solution is most commonly used. In recent years, we proposed our customer to replace their old recitifers with high efficiency rectifiers, to transform indoor site to outdoor sites which highly improved the PUE performance of network.
After the creation of China Tower Company, honestly, our domestic market will be smaller than before due to infrastructure sharing. On the other hand, tower company will raise higher technical, commercial, engineering, and deployment requirements to suppliers. This will make it harder for small companies to survive in this market. The Matthew Effect will be obvious in market share.
While many sites will be transferred to China Tower Company, we feel MNOs will retain key hub sites and repeater sites.
ZTE have already started receiving power equipment orders from China Tower Company.
TowerXchange: Please summarise the benefits of partnering with ZTE on Energy Solution Planning.
Weibo Li, Director of Energy Solution Planning, ZTE:
Working with ZTE provides three important benefits to our customers:
1) Powerful R&D to provide leading solutions and products
With about 1,000 engineers and 10% revenue investment in R&D annually, ZTE ensures its technical superiority in products and solutions. The ZTE Energy Department owns 525 patents worldwide on energy systems and telecom power systems. ZTE leads or is involved in the setting and revision of more than ten national and industrial standards.
2) Proven delivery capabilities to make fast deployment
Leveraging our global sales and service platform, ZTE has powerful logistics and delivery capabilities to support local projects.
3) Worldwide successful cases illustrating ZTE’s ability to help customers save energy opex
In 2013 ZTE won the “Best Cost Efficiency Initiative Award” from AfricaCom.
In 2014 ZTE won the “African ICT Green Power Solution Technology Leadership Award” from Frost & Sullivan.
